The following abbreviations and terms are herewith defined, at least some of which are referred to within the following description of the present disclosure.    3GPP 3rd-Generation Partnership Project    AGCH Access Grant Channel    ASIC Application Specific Integrated Circuit    BLER Block Error Rate    BSC Base Station Controller    BTS Base Transceiver Stations    CC Coverage Class    CN Core Network    CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check    DL Downlink    DSP Digital Signal Processor    EDGE Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution    EGPRS Enhanced General Packet Radio Service    eNB evolved Node B    E-UTRA Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access    GSM Global System for Mobile Communications    GERAN GSM/EDGE Radio Access Network    GPRS General Packet Radio Service    HARQ Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request    LTE Long-Term Evolution    MAC Media Access Control    MME Mobile Management Entity    MT Mobile Terminal    MTC Machine Type Communications    PCH Paging Channel    PDN Packet Data Network    RAN Radio Access Network    RBS Radio Base Station    RLC Radio Link Control    RNC Radio Network Controller    SGSN Serving GPRS Support Node    UE User Equipment    UL Uplink    UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System    WCDMA Wideband Code Division Multiple Access    WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave AccessReceiving device: The wireless devices (e.g., users, mobile stations) described herein are configured to operate as a receiving device when receiving DL communications from a wireless access node (e.g., base station), which in this case would be configured to operate as a transmitting device.
The anticipated ubiquitous deployment of wireless devices used for what is known as Machine-Type-Communication (MTC) will result in wireless devices being placed outside the typical radio coverage of the existing radio networks, e.g., in basements and similar locations. One way to improve the radio coverage is by expanding the radio access network infrastructure, such as by adding additional Radio Base Station (RBS) equipment. This, however, may very quickly result in an unreasonable investment effort and may not be acceptable to operators.
An alternative approach to adding additional equipment is to keep the existing radio access network infrastructure unchanged but instead improve the radio coverage through novel radio transmission and reception techniques as well as new Radio Resource Management algorithms. The latter approach is currently being discussed in the wireless industry and is a subject for a standardization effort, for example, in the 3rd-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as described in the 3GPP TR 36.824 V11.0.0 Technical Report, entitled “Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); LTE coverage enhancements” and the 3GPP TSG-GERAN Meeting #62 Work Item Description GP-140421, entitled “New Study Item on Cellular System Support for Ultra Low Complexity and Low Throughput Internet of Things.” The contents of these two documents are hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes.
While there are many techniques that can be used to enhance the radio coverage, one technique is to enhance the radio coverage through the use of repeated transmissions. The repeated transmissions technique is currently being considered in the context of the related standardization work in 3GPP TSG RAN, as described in the above-referenced 3GPP TR 36.824 V11.0.0 Technical Report, entitled “Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); LTE coverage enhancements” as well as in 3GPP TSG GERAN as described in the 3GPP TR 45.820 V1.3.0 Technical Report, entitled “Cellular System Support for Ultra Low Complexity and Low Throughput Internet of Things”.
To explain a problem associated with the use of repeated transmissions, one should first realize that for a receiving device to understand if it is being paged, being assigned resources, receiving scheduled data in the downlink (DL), being sent a radio resource request, or receiving scheduled data in the uplink (UL), the receiving device needs to monitor the common DL channel (e.g., in the case of paging, resource assignment), the common UL channel (e.g., in the case of radio resource request), or the data bearing channel assigned to the receiving device (e.g., in the case of scheduled data). It is to be noted that each radio block being received and monitored by the receiving device will have a negative impact on the receiving device from a power consumption perspective.
In view of these realizations, one problem with the existing DL monitoring functionality and repeated transmissions is that the receiving device (e.g., a mobile station (MS)) currently monitors all of the DL radio blocks on the common channel (e.g., in the case of paging, resource assignment) or on the channel assigned for data transfer (e.g., in the case of DL scheduling) when expecting a radio block addressed to itself. For example, assume the receiving device is not in extended coverage and hence can decode any instance of a received radio block without any additional repetitions, where the received radio block in this case is actually one of multiple repetitions of the same radio block intended for a device in extended coverage. The receiving device will not know that the particular received radio block is part of a repetition period N (e.g., eight repetitions of a radio block) and is repeated N times (e.g., there are seven more repetitions of the radio block). Instead, the receiving device would expect that it might be addressed in the coming next radio blocks (e.g., seven more repeated radio blocks after the first received radio block) and will monitor all the repeated N radio blocks (e.g., eight repeated radio blocks) when, in actuality, the receiving device would only need to have monitored the first received repeated radio block. The receiving device, by monitoring all of the repeated N radio blocks, will have a negative impact from a power consumption perspective, and hence, it would be desirable to minimize the monitoring time of the receiving device. This need and other needs are addressed in the present disclosure.